to me not easy to say. But it is hardly less
difficult to conceive that he could have distinctly negatived any of
them; and, more especially, that demonology which has been accepted by
the Christian Churches, in every age and under all their mutual
antagonisms. But, I repeat my conviction that, whether Jesus
sanctioned the demonology of his time and nation or not, it is doomed.
The future of Christianity, as a dogmatic system and apart from the
old Israelitish ethics which it has appropriated and developed, lies
in the answer which mankind will eventually give to the question,
whether they are prepared to believe such stories as the Gadarene and
the pneumatological hypotheses which go with it, or not. My belief is
they will decline to do anything of the sort, whenever and wherever
their minds have been disciplined by science. And that discipline
must, and will, at once follow and lead the footsteps of advancing
civilisation.

The preceding pages were written before I became acquainted with the
contents of the May number of the "Nineteenth Century," wherein I
discover many things which are decidedly not to my advantage. It would
appear that "evasion" is my chief resource, "incapacity for strict
argument" and "rottenness of ratiocination" my main mental
characteristics, and that it is "barely credible" that a statement
which I profess to make of my own knowledge is true. All which things
I notice, merely to illustrate the great truth, forced on me by long
experience, that it is only from those who enjoy the blessing of a
firm hold of the Christian faith that such manifestations of meekness,
patience, and charity are to be expected.

I had imagined that no one who had read my preceding papers, could
entertain a doubt as to my position in respect of the main issue, as
it has been stated and restated by my opponent:

an Agnosticism which knows nothing of the relation of man to
God must not only refuse belief to our Lord's most undoubted
teaching, but must deny the reality of the spiritual
convictions in which He lived.[98]

That is said to be "the simple question which is at issue between us,"
and the three testimonies to that teaching and those convictions
selected are the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, and the Story
of the Passion.

My answer, reduced to its briefest form, has been: In the first
place, the evidence is such that the exact nature of the teachings and
the convictions of Jes